oh, without question. At least with Cannabis, people do overestimate its danger potential as a recreational substance. You can't overdose on Cannabis, its LD-50 is something obscenely high. Which is always a good sign.

I still am trying to figure out why people would not want marijuana legalized.

Naturally people wouldn't drive stoned, but I think it would be safer to be stoned and driving than drunk and driving.

That's absolutely true.

In all honesty, weed is still illegal because Big Tobacco and Big Alcohol don't want Big Reefer edging in on their vice market share.

Also, powerful organized crime leaders with a lot of money and influence absolutely do not want to see it legalized, or their power created by the artificially high prices of illegal goods would dissipate overnight.

If you could be anything you want, I bet you'd be disappointed--am I right?

simulatedworld, you're absolutely correct. Drug Oligarchs toast the efforts of governments to keep their products illegal, after all, with out the War on Drugs, they wouldn't be collecting billions annually.

In all honesty, weed is still illegal because Big Tobacco and Big Alcohol don't want Big Reefer edging in on their vice market share.

Also, powerful organized crime leaders with a lot of money and influence absolutely do not want to see it legalized, or their power created by the artificially high prices of illegal goods would dissipate overnight.

I had thought about all of those things, but don't the powerful crime leaders have connections to the other big businesses, enabling them more power if their product was legally manufactured? I am sure that many big businesses have these connections to these organized crime leaders, and the thing with these people are they are not afraid to kill their competition.

I think there is only a theoretical line dividing crime and any big business, legal or not, but that it actually melds together sometime along the way.

It's only a matter of time before local governments will realize truly how much money they could get by taxing marijuana (the nation's biggest cash crop). Popular support is ever increasing. As simulatedworld mentioned, large organizations have vested interests in continual criminalization. However, this also includes governmental organizations, including the DEA, local police narcotics departments, and the (mostly privatized) prison-industrial complex.

On that note, just today I read how my dumbass congressman wants to get higher punishments (meaning more payouts to the government in the form of fines) for marijuana offenders, based on the recent "evidence" that marijuana strains are offering higher THC levels. 'Super marijuana' becoming a problem - WGN

This is ridiculous. Higher THC levels means you have to smoke less plant material, which means a safer experience. Lawmakers just want more money from offenders. Chicago has already decriminalized marijuana to an extent, making offenders pay out in fines instead of serving jailtime- they did this because of the huge amount of people constantly being caught and costing the city money. This is probably what we'll see in the future, which is logically the smarter way to go. Public support is already there.

-Historical mores of pot as an evil substance. Moron Americans that can't critically think for themselves.
-DEA has a 100s of millions of dollars dedicated to fighting marijuana. DEA stakeholder don't want see their world severely contract; many people would be without a job.
-Lobbying efforts by tobacco and pharma to keep pot and other drugs illegal. They know we take prescriptions for fun. And they profit off it.